A page that is slow, jumpy, broken on a phone or missing from search: check in this order

1. Write down one page and what you are measuring

Choose one page that matters, the device most of your visitors use and the report that raised the concern. Run the page through a public speed report twice and keep the figures. Decide whether you are looking at a lab result or real-visitor data, because they answer different questions and the real-visitor data lags by 28 days. Without a measured starting point none of the later steps can be accepted.

• Lab or real-visitor data? See the lab versus field guide.
• Does the page appear in a real-visitor report at all? A missing result is an unknown.

2. Fix what stops people using the page, before polish

Layout that breaks on a phone and controls that cannot be used with a keyboard stop people entirely, so they come before speed. Open the page at 320 CSS pixels wide and look for sideways scrolling; then complete the main flow with the keyboard alone. A defect list from these two checks is short, specific and fixable, and it is the point at which the layout job or the accessibility job becomes a fair purchase.

• Sideways scroll or overlap at a width: the sideways-scroll guide.
• Control unreachable or focus hidden: the keyboard guide.
• Labels, errors and messages on forms: the form accessibility guide.

3. Then speed: the four parts of loading time

If the loading figure is the problem, split it into time to first byte, load delay, load duration and render delay before touching images. Each part points to a different fix, and the two delay parts should be near zero. Then check layout shift, which is a separate metric with separate causes: images and embeds without reserved space, late consent banners and font swaps.

• Loading metric: LCP guide.
• Jumping content: layout shift guide.
• Responsiveness to taps: ask for a measurement, because the lab test only approximates it.

4. Then addresses: do old and new URLs agree?

After a relaunch or a restructure, test the old addresses people still use. Each should make one permanent redirect to its page, with no chain, loop or unrelated destination, and the sitemap, canonical tags and crawl rules must tell the same story. Use the worked test sheet as a format. This step does not change what users see, so it is easy to skip and costly to miss.

• Old addresses: redirect map guide.
• Duplicates or blocked pages in a search report: canonical, sitemap and robots guide.

Which job fits, and what is not covered

One metric on one page is the Core Web Vitals job (from £495, untested). Up to five layout defects on one page are the layout job (£195). One flow against a named checklist is the accessibility job (from £595). Up to 300 addresses are the address job (from £395). A section with all of these against a written standard is the quality-pass project (from £2,950, quoted; up to ten pages and three speed fixes), and keeping the numbers inside limits afterwards is the monthly service (£295 a month, untested, no response-time guarantee). All prices are untested and paid only after sign-off. Not covered: ranking or traffic promises, legal accessibility statements and redesigns. Send the page address and the report in your first enquiry, not logins.